In an effort to get Mayor Shari Green (soon to be former Mayor Green) the Conservative nomination for the Cariboo- Prince George riding, the Conservatives could very well be setting the stage wherein one of the safest Tory Ridings in all of Canada becomes either Liberal or NDP.

For those who can’t recall, in 1988 Brian Gardiner took the riding for the NDP , which later became Cariboo-Prince George  from the Conservatives. He lost the election to Dick Harris in 1993. So anyone that says it can’t happen, hasn’t got their thinking cap on.

The nomination process to select a candidate for the riding is fraught with moves reminiscent of a family feud that just keeps growing.

In May of this year, the riding association was taken over by a pro Green slate of directors, a move  reminiscent of the DBIA  take over some years earlier. Among the new directors, several who had taken an active role in Green’s run for Mayor, including Green herself.  The new President of the Riding  Association is  none other than Cameron Stolz, who has been  viewed as Green’s strongest supporter at the City of Prince George Council table.

Green would simply need to step down as a director in order to run for the riding.

At least one of the newly elected Directors ( who is a supporter of Green’s) has been out trying to sell memberships for the Conservative  party.  That in itself suggests Green is taking a run at the nomination, unless of course her supporters are just selling memberships for the hell of it.

By all accounts, there were to be five serious candidates for the nomination;

Green, TJ Grewal, Nick Fedorkiw, Todd Doherty and Gerald Caron from Vanderhoof.

Both Green and Grewal have not yet announced , but if you have done any following you would quickly realize that their intentions are the worst kept secrets in Prince George.

Last Thursday , James Mitchell , Senior Political Operations Officer for Western Canada gave Nick Fedorkiw a call informing him that the Nomination package must be in by November 13^th. The memberships sold, must be  received by the National Party  office in Ottawa by November 20^th. The nomination vote is set  for the 15^th of December.  Keep that November 13^th date in mind.

Todd Doherty has received notification of these dates, but  not until after he  heard it from a friend, who got the information from a card carrying NDP supporter. Hmmmmm.

It is no secret that TJ Grewal had the lead in obtaining memberships. The rest of the pack may have been calling on the Indo Canadian  community for support, but Grewal has the inside track , and had clearly outsold the rest of the bunch.

But there is one little problem.

Grewal took out his membership on May 20th of this year. The rules state  you must be a card carrying member   of the Conservative party for  6 months before  being  eligible  to  enter the race.  Now let’s see, what date is six months after May 20^th?  Oh that would be November 20^th and the cut off for nomination packages is November 13^th,  just 7 days before Grewal would be officially “eligible” to  be a candidate.

Now did that date come out of the hat or was it intentional ? Let’s not forget,  sitting M.P Dick Harris only  made his intention known  that he  would not seek re-election on  October 25^th, a  mere  2 and a half weeks  before the  November 13^th cut off date for nominations.

For the benefit of those in the hierarchy of the Conservative party in Ottawa, may I say this, the hand writing was on the wall for Mayor Shari Green, she is not considered by many  to be one of the best Mayor’s this city has ever had. She has on her side, by what I have heard, about 720 sold memberships. That isn’t enough to get her past the post and without someone throwing their support behind her and taking their votes over to her, chances are diminished .

Now Grewal had the lead in the memberships, there is no doubt about that, and he will never support Green.

Will the Conservatives do the right thing in ensuring that the democratic process is fulfilled and wave the seven days that Grewal is short? Or will we see a repeat of  the 1998 race and the results that went with it?

I`m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.